Internet delivery system

ABSTRACT

An Internet delivery method delivers electronic information products to a plurality of users via the Internet. A plurality of display formats are stored in a database. The display formats including at least a default display format and a custom display format. Information is also stored for each user indicating whether the user is a specific type of user. When a user logs in, the user is identified as being that specific type of user. If the user is identified as the specific type of user, then an electronic information product is delivered to the user in the custom display format. The electronic information products are accessed via computers connected to the Internet, including wireless devices.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/675,235 filed Sep. 30, 2003, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety. This application is also related to thefollowing applications, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety:

-   -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/289,782 titled ELECTRONIC        DOCUMENT REPOSITORY MANAGEMENT AND ACCESS SYSTEM, filed Nov. 20,        2002 (which is now granted U.S. Pat. No. 7,085,755, issued on        Aug. 1, 2006); and    -   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/675,236 titled NETWORK-BASED        METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING AND PROVIDING ACCESS TO A        FORMULARY, filed Sep. 30, 2003.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of this patent document contains material which is subject tocopyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to thefacsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document, as it appearsin the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, butotherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE RELATED ART

The invention relates generally to information technology. Moreparticularly, the invention relates to methods and systems capable ofmanaging and delivering a plurality of different information services orapplications over the Internet.

The growth in the use of computers, particularly in connection with theInternet and electronic commerce, has led to an increased availabilityof and improved accessibility to information delivered over theInternet. In particular, electronic databases for research purposes orobtaining information have become a research resource preferred totraditional print databases. However, existing Internet delivery methodsand systems are often customized for a single individual informationservice or application, or for a specific operating system, computerplatform, technology or architecture. They often do not interconnect orsupport future information services or applications. In particular, thearchitectures of existing Internet delivery methods and system are notflexible enough to support functionality which may later be desired tobe added to the information service or application.

Furthermore, existing Internet delivery methods and systems are providedin a rigid format such that every subscriber is offered the same displayor user interface. Different individual or group subscribers cannotalter their display or user interface to provide a customized view orfunctionality. This limitation prevents the customization andoptimization of a single Internet delivery method or system for use bymultiple subscribers having varying needs or concentrations.

Also, it may be awkward for customers to use Internet delivery methodsand systems that are developed independently, use different technologiesand architectures and/or present different user interfaces. Supportingseveral different technology suites and several different informationservices or applications performing similar functions may be aninefficient use of development, quality assurance, content mastering,and operational resources. Supporting multiple information services orapplications developed without a common business or technical visionalso makes it much more difficult to build new applications orapplication functions, particularly those functions that span severaldifferent information services or applications.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The preferred embodiments of the present invention address the issuesdiscussed above, and relate to an improved flexible Internet deliverysystem and method capable of offering a full suite of informationservices and applications while still providing development andmaintenance delivery system. Information services and applications canbe added using a common architecture and application framework, whiledifferent individual or group subscribers can nevertheless alter theirdisplay or user interface to provide a customized view or functionality.

According to a first aspect of the invention, an Internet deliverymethod delivers electronic information services or applications to aplurality of users via the Internet. A plurality of display formats arestored in a database. The display formats including at least a defaultdisplay format and a custom display format. Information is also storedfor each user indicating whether the user is a specific type of user.When a user logs in, the user is identified as being that specific typeof user. If the user is identified as the specific type of user, then anelectronic information product is delivered to the user in the customdisplay format.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The figures of the accompanying drawings are meant to be exemplary andnot limiting, in which like references are intended to refer to like orcorresponding parts, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an Internet Delivery System according to anembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a content management system according to anembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram of an application architecture according to anembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram of the presentation framework interfaces accordingto an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5 is a dataflow diagram for a presentation framework according toan embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6 is a diagram of the application presentation interface accordingto an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 7 depicts the templates and template engine in presentationframework 460 according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a method for identifying users, providingdisplay formats, and logging subscriber use of the method and systemaccording to an embodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 9A, 9B, 9C and 9D depict screenshots according to a preferredembodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 10A and 10B are a diagram an access control system according to anembodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a method for transmitting results of themethod and system according to an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Preferred embodiments of the invention are now described with referenceto the drawings. The basic architecture of an Internet delivery systemaccording to an embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG. 1.Some of the system and components of the system as presented in FIG. 1are exemplary of the West electronic document repository management andaccess system, available from West Publishing Company, of Eagen, Minn.and further described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/289,782filed on Nov. 20, 2002 and titled ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT REPOSITORYMANAGEMENT AND ACCESS SYSTEM, which is incorporated herein by referencein its entirety.

The system and components of Internet Delivery System 50 as presented inFIG. 1 include content management system 30, business informationsystems 45, reports 60 and external content assets 70. Electronicinformation products are delivered to the users of computers 10,wireless devices 15 and/or Intranet products 18 via Internet 20. Theseelectronic information products are information services or applicationsoffered to customers in exchange for payment or some other businesspurpose. The computer 10 may be any desktop, laptop, personal digitalassistant (PDA) or other computer known in the art or hereafterdeveloped. Known computers generally includes components such as one ormore central processing units (CPU), processors, storage, modules,drives, monitors, displays, and/or keyboards. The wireless devices 15may be any wireless PDAs or mobile telephones known in the art orhereafter developed. The Intranet products 18 may be any Intranet knownin the art, such as the Apollo system from Thomson Healthcare, orhereafter developed. The computer 10, wireless device 15 and/or Intranetproducts 18 provide a user with access to the Internet delivery system50. Although two computers 10, three wireless devices 15 and twocomputers in the Intranet products 18 are shown in FIG. 1 and discussedhereafter, for the sake of simplicity, there may be any number ofcomputers and/or wireless devices and users.

The preferred embodiments of the invention do not require any alterationin the operation of Internet 20.

The Internet delivery system 50 described herein provides a flexiblearchitecture for delivering a plurality of electronic informationproducts, such as the formulary tool described in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/675,236, titled NETWORK-BASED METHOD AND SYSTEMFOR MANAGING AND PROVIDING ACCESS TO A FORMULARY, filed Sep. 30, 2003.The products delivered over the Internet delivery system 50 include forexample, electronic information products and/or functionality relatingto healthcare, for example, pharmaceutical inventory management,formulary management, continuing medical education, web communityservices, advertising, or electronic commerce such as web basedpharmaceutical order and delivery. The electronic information productsmay be developed prior to or at the same time the Internet deliverysystem 50 is provided, or embedded and/or incorporated into the system50 later to provide new or additional products or functionality. Each ofthe electronic information products may be provided access to and/orincorporate existing content or databases to maximize the utilizationand flexibility of product delivery over the system 50. Additionally,the electronic information products may be customizable by the systemprovider, administrative subscriber or individual subscriber to providecustomized features such as, the user interface appropriate to theorganization or particular role within the organization, or otherfunctionality necessary to the subscriber or group.

The content management system 30 contains data or other information in acontent repository, as further described herein. The businessinformation systems 45 preferably provide, for example, associatingcustomer account information with a user, for example, user type,product subscriptions, and other data or other information relating tocustomer accounts. The Internet delivery system 50 generates reports 60to provide information regarding usage and resources of the system 50,as further described herein in reference to FIG. 8.

In a preferred embodiment, the content management system 30 isconfigured as a relational database. The content management system 30includes healthcare related information such as the Physicians DeskReference, proprietary pharmaceutical databases, or other healthcareinformation. Data items or documents in the database are originallygathered and processed according to an intake process, which may includeenhancing the document with such features as described in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/289,782 titled ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT REPOSITORYMANAGEMENT AND ACCESS SYSTEM, filed Nov. 20, 2002, such as assigningeach document a unique identifier, providing hyperlinks in the text torelated information, adding editorial notes, associating metafiles toenrich documents, or associating the document into a particularcategory, subcategory or table of contents hierarchy.

Preferably, an online content management system 80 enhances data itemsor documents according to the process depicted in FIG. 2. Online contentmay be produced from the data items or information in the database bycombining document to product mapping 33 and master documents andindexes 36 in content management system 30. Document to product mapping33 preferably includes assigning an identifier, such as anidentification number to each document, and assigning the documentidentification number to a particular product. This provides the abilityto limit the data offered or included in each product provided by thesystem 50. For example, delivery of a formulary product over the system50 is limited to users subscribing to the formulary product. Indexes andmaster documents 36 are pre-processed to product content and tagged tosupport the presentation layer. The online content management system 80combines the content with search instances and pushes updates to theonline system, for user access over the Internet 20.

Referring to FIG. 3, which depicts a high level view of the applicationarchitecture of the online system 50 according to a preferredembodiment, the online system 50 includes the application 410 andunderlying application program interface (API) 85, domain objects 90,services and infrastructure 400, and is connected to online contentmanagement system 80. The API 85 includes the presentation framework 460and application framework 450 which provide, for example, support ofscreen navigation and common page behavior, in a consistent and reliablemanner to provide a seamless delivery system for more than one product.For example, web page templates may be pre-produced and content for aparticular product is embedded into the pre-existing templates. Theapplication API 85 may be designed using existing software, such as JavaDeveloper, or other known software, or software developed hereafter. Theapplication framework 450 is accessed as an interface to the underlyingservices, which enables evolution of the system 50 services withoutindividually customizing each product or function delivered over thesystem 50. The presentation framework 460 may provide a commonpresentation for each product, or provide a customized presentation fora product. The application 410 and API 85 access information that isshared by the layers of the system using common domain objects 90. Thedomain objects 90 encapsulate common behavior utilized over each layerso as to eliminate the need for redundant objects within each layer,including for example, user information such as rights or preferences,such as how content is retrieved and displayed or how the productinterface is displayed; logical and physical session data relevant toeach user; parameters required to perform a search request; searchresult parameters such as document product; version and document ID;document request parameters required to retrieve a single document;document data; document outline objects describing the structure of adocument; user data, including entity level user, user group orindividual user data objects containing data specific to the user of anapplication; authorization request objects for querying the accesscontrol system about a specific set of resources or products andreturning authorization information about the resource or product;product information, including content sets and fields within thecontent sets; and exceptions, such as error interpretation.

Still referring to FIG. 3, in a preferred embodiment, the services andinfrastructure 400 includes utilities 420, business services 47, andinfrastructure services 440. The utilities 420 are common utilities thatmay be used by various products, for example, file access routines orpreference manipulation. Use of common utilities reduces the need forredundant product specific development work for each product deliveredover the system 50. The business services 47 are services includingsearch, access control or retrieval of content in the content managementsystem 30. The infrastructure services 440 include for examplemonitoring, logging or tracking usage, and data access and reporting.

Referring to FIGS. 4 and 5, which depicts a detailed view of thepresentation framework interfaces, according to a preferred embodimentof the invention, with the components described in reference to FIG. 3.The application 410 contains custom screens 412, custom templates 414and custom actions 416. The custom screens 412 contain presentationlogic that prepares a page for display, including, for example,retrieving data and formatting data from the application framework 450.The custom templates 414 make up the page describing what is to bedisplayed. The templates may contain, for example HTML and Velocity tagsthat are needed to construct the page. The templates are used togetherwith the presentation framework and product specific mark-up to providethe product display on a webpage. The custom actions 416 include forexample application specific control logic for utilizing thepresentation framework or the application framework. The applicationframework 450 is the path by which applications will communicate withthe services they require. The preferred functionality of thepresentation framework 450 is to provide smart proxies and applicationisolation. The presentation framework 460 utilizes each of thecomponents included in the application 410 and the application framework450 to provide consistent web page views of each of the productsdelivered over the system.

The application framework 450 includes interfaces such as the FavoritesService Interface 451, Product Information Service Interface 453, AccessControl Service Interface 454, Preferences Service Interface 455,Logging Client 456, Content Search Service Interface 457, ContentRetrieval Service Interface 458 and Localization Service Interface 459.The Favorites Service Interface 451 provides an interface between thebetween the presentation framework 460 and the Favorites Service 710,which provides a user's list of favorite searches. The user FavoritesService list is associated with the user so that each time the useraccesses the system, the user has access to his or her list to expediteselecting a favorite product or item. The Product Information ServiceInterface 453 provides the interface between the presentation framework460 and the Product Information 730 which provides information relatedto product structure. For example, the presentation framework 460 willobtain information about content sets for each product. The AccessControl Service Interface 454 provides the interface between thepresentation framework 460 and the Access Control System 540, whichprovides user authentication preferably using caching and routing and/orauthorization requests, as further described herein. Additionally, theAccess Control Service Interface 454 provides the interface between thepresentation framework 460, which preserves the state of the user'ssession during intervals between expiration of a user's HTTP session anda user's logical session expires. All of the data associated with theuser's session necessary for storage is stored to the user domainobject.

The Preferences Service Interface 455 provides the interface between thepresentation framework 460 and the Preferences Service 700 when a userdomain object is needed. User domain objects typically are createdduring the login process. Preferences are obtained from the preferencesservice 700 and stored in the user object, and the user object isupdated when user preferences change. The Logging Client interface 456is a utility that interacts with the Logging Client 740 to loginformation needed by the presentation framework 460. The Content SearchService Interface 457 provides the interface between the presentationframework 460 and the content search service 500, further describedherein, which provides searching system products. The Content RetrievalService Interface 458 provides the interface between the presentationframework 460 and the content retrieval service 520 which receivesapplication requests to retrieve documents or other items stored in thecontent database. The application typically requests items using adocument identifier. The Localization Service Interface 459 provides theinterface between the application framework 460 and the LocalizationService 760 which provides product display views appropriate to aparticular locality, for example, in a particular language.

Referring to FIGS. 6 and 7, in a preferred embodiment, the application410 provides template pages, as further described herein, to provide avisual presentation of the system. The dispatcher servlet 480 controlswhich template page is accessed at each user request over the Internet20. Specialized templates and screen classes format data forconstruction of the HTML pages that are sent to the presentationframework 460. Preferably, there is one screen class and one screentemplate for every screen view and presentation framework 460 uses atemplate engine and templates to create HTTP documents or documentfragments. FIG. 7 shows screen template 461, navigation template 462,layout template 463, and template engine 464.

Referring to FIG. 8, which depicts a high level flowchart of a methodfor identifying a user, providing display formats and logging use of thesystem according to an embodiment of the invention, a user accesses theInternet delivery system by logging into the system. Log-in to theInternet delivery system generally includes accessing the system websiteand entering the user's subscription account information. The systemdetermines whether the user is authorized based on the log-ininformation. Log-in information may include a subscription account name,user name or password, or other log-in procedure known in the art. Inanother embodiment of the invention, log in may be accomplished byInternet protocol (IP) address recognition, for example, using theuser's IP address is an identifier known in the art for a computer ordevice on a TCP/IP network, such as a numeric address. If the systemrecognizes the user's IP address, the subscriber need not entersubscription account information, and the system will automaticallydetermine whether the user is authorized based on the IP address. Thesystem supports flexible subscription accounts, for example,organization based multiple user accounts having access to everydatabase, product, product and function offered by the system,individual user subscriptions, pay-per-use, or select access to certaindatabases, products or functions. For example, only a user subscribingto or otherwise authorized to access the formulary database could obtainaccess to the formulary database resources, and search and retrieve dataitems. Subscribers may create user groups by region, facility,department or other logical grouping.

Display formats are stored to the system (step 200). For example, aplurality of customized display formats are provided for users accordingto, for example, user type or particular user. Information associatedwith each user, or user type is stored to the system (step 210). Theinformation associated with each user may be for example user type,account information, subscription information, product accessinformation, custom display format preferences; or user displaypreferences. If the user is identified, (step 300) as authorized andhaving user information associated with the user, such as custom displayformats or user type, the user is provided a custom display format (step310). If the user is not identified, the user is provided the defaultdisplay format (step 320). If the user is not authorized, log in to thesystem fails.

When the system authorizes access to a user, the system recognizes theuser and provides a customized view appropriate to the user, for examplethe user type, utilizing the user's preferences, or favorites services.For example, an administrator user of a formulary product, is providedthe view shown in FIG. 9A, which provides access to the administrator'sversion of the formulary product. By contrast, a non-administrator, suchas a medical provider, or other formulary product user is provided theview shown in FIG. 9B upon logging into the system. FIG. 9C shows theview displayed on a PDA of the formulary product. FIG. 9D shows the viewof the system access screen on a PDA.

If the user is authorized, the user is provided a display, for example,a system home page, or user home page, offering the user severalproducts. The user selects a product, preferably a product delivered bythe system, such as a formulary, from the display. If the user searchesthe product, the user selects the search by entering search terms, suchas keywords or indexing, which preferably is the search 500 of FIG. 5,the system performs a search and provides results which may be retrievedby a user. Retrieving the results is preferably provided by thefunctionality of Content Retrieval 520 of FIG. 5. The user may continuesearching the product or may select another product. When the user isfinished using the system or product, the user logs out. Each use of thesystem or product(s), for example, inputs entered in connection withsearch 500 or content retrieval 520 is logged by the system (step 330)and a log is provided (step 340), for example, in the form of a report,preferably the reports 60 of FIG. 1, and may be stored in associationwith a user, or with the user's group or organization. The informationprovided in step 340 may be customized by the administrator of a usergroup or organization to provide use information relevant to theorganizations needs. For example, an organization may wish to beprovided with information related to the log to obtained information(step 330), or another organization may wish to only be provided withthe identity of a user (step 300). The information provided (step 340)also may be summarized and sent to customers. In addition, theinformation (step 340) may be collected to understand the usability ofthe product and for enhancing the Internet delivery system based on useor demographics and market conditions.

The search 500 generally by entering user inputted search criteria intothe system and searching the databases for the entered search criteria.For example, the user may select certain databases or products tosearch, and certain criterion to search for in those selected databasesor products. The system performs searches by methods such as thosedescribed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/289,782 titledELECTRONIC DOCUMENT REPOSITORY MANAGEMENT AND ACCESS SYSTEM, and filedNov. 20, 2002. For example, the system searches certain selectedrecords, collections of records, information from a selected source, orother attributes associated with a database item, or searches usingkeywords or according to table of contents hierarchy. Results of thesearch include lists of relevant data provided in a view customizedaccording to the user, and according to the type of device on which theresults are displayed. For example, a search result list displayed on adesktop computer monitor may include multiple references and editorialnotes. However, the same search results list displayed on a portabledevice may be limited to only the underlying product or documentaccording to the portable device display size limitations, and may notinclude extraneous information provided on a desktop computer monitordisplay. In addition, a user may define a display view according totheir preferences, the preference data is associated with the user inthe preferences service 700. If the user defines a customized displayview, the user preferences are stored to the system and used each timethe user accesses the system. A user may select a search result from thelist to retrieve from the system. Content retrieval 520 typicallyinvolves obtaining the document image and displaying it in the API 85using the common domain objects 90.

Referring to FIG. 10A, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, thelog-in or access control procedure 600 is generally accomplished byperforming authentication (step 175) using the methods described inreference to FIG. 8, for example, accomplished through the systemwebpage, and user authentication may be accomplished by systemrecognition of the user's IP address. When the user is authorized, theaccess control system validates the user information step 180, manages asecurity ticket step 185 or authorizes resources step 200.

Successful authentication of the user provides access to the system, forexample, services, links, products, content databases and otherfunctionality. The system stores the subscriber information inassociation with information such as the subscriber's IP address range,subscriber connection type, user names and/or passwords, contactinformation, product access or limitations, other user defined dataassociated with the user or product items, administrator, region, userpreferences, favorites list or selected products. In addition, thesubscription information may also contain or be associated with thesubscription type including pricing or account type information, such astime based subscriptions, transaction-based subscriptions, pay per view,or block subscription.

Referring to FIG. 10B, when the user is authorized by the access controlsubsystem 600, the access control system permits user access to theapplication 410, user account data 610, subscription and product data620, user management tool 630, online business data management system640, logging service 650 and management service 660. The user accountdata 610 includes for example the user account information, such as usertype. The user account data 610 provides the system information as touser type so that a customized display appropriate to the user type isdisplayed when a particular user logs in. Examples of user types includeusers, such as: nurses, doctors, administrators, educators orprescribers. In addition, a user type may also be the type of devicefrom which the system is accessed. Each user type may have a customizeddisplay, for example, customized look and feel of the user interface forthe system, that has information or functionality related to thespecific user or the needs of the user type. For example, an educator'scustomized display may include information or functionality relating toacademics, literature or teaching materials, whereas a prescriber'scustomized display might include information or functionality relatingto medicine or patient records, such as the formulary product screenshot example shown in FIG. 9B. In another embodiment of the invention,the administrator or administration subscriber may customize the userspecific views as appropriate within the organization, such as theformulary product screen shot example shown in FIG. 9A. Other examplesof customized displays include: displays appropriate to the accessdevice type, such as a streamlined view for a device having a smallscreen, displays according to user or organization preference, printready displays or displays in other languages. If the system does notdetermine that the user is a specific user type, the system provides theuser with the default display.

Either one of the default display or customized user display or both ofthe display may include flexible or changeable displays which includeuseful information for a user entering the system such as, customernotification of current or pending changes to for example, documents,relevant rules, databases, functionality, new product information,scheduled maintenance. This useful information may also be sent asemails to each user group or customer.

Still referring to FIG. 10B, the subscription and product data 620includes the user subscription information and product descriptions. Thesubscription and product data 620 provides the system with informationrelated to the user's system access, for example, the electronicinformation products, content or other data items. Additionally, whenthe user is authenticated, the user management tool 630 and onlinebusiness data management system 640 provide the user with informationregarding user groups or roles and/or any subscription, product andcontent changes, respectively.

In one embodiment of the invention, the system is accessible directly bya PDA (personal digital assistant), mobile telephone, e-tablet, or otherportable electronic device. A PDA user logs into the system as furtherdescribed herein, using for example, handheld cradle synchronization, orwireless network. The system preferably recognizes that the systemaccess point is a particular device type, and provides a customized viewappropriate to the device type. For example, the content displayed on amobile telephone screen or a PDA is provided with pared down contentappropriate for the device layout and tailored navigation through theelectronic information products or other data items provided by thesystem, as shown in FIG. 9C.

FIG. 11 depicts a flowchart of the system for transmitting systeminformation, according to an embodiment of the invention. Informationtransmitted by the system includes, for example, electronic informationproducts or other data items. The user accesses the system informationby logging in as discussed herein, and enters criteria (step 250) toaccess the system information. Entering criteria is accomplishedgenerally by entering text into the system, via for example, a keyboard,touch screen, or other device known in the art. The criteria may be forexample a particular product, function or database in the system thatthe user wishes to access. In addition, the criteria may include searchterms to be searched for within the selected product, function ordatabase in the system. The criteria are processed by the system, forexample by hierarchical menu selection, or searching as furtherdescribed herein.

The items sought in the system information are displayed (step 260) forthe user view. The items may be displayed (step 260) on the screen ofthe device the user is using to access the system, for example acomputer 10. The user selects the displayed items for transmission (step270), for example, by entering the appropriate item into the system, andthe selected items are transmitted (step 280). The selected items may betransmitted to another device, for example a PDA, mobile telephone orother portable electronic device, so that the user may have access toselected system information from a portable device. This is particularlyuseful, for example, for using a formulary (such as the formularymanagement method and system described in U.S. patent application Ser.No. 10/675,236, titled NETWORK-BASED METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING ANDPROVIDING ACCESS TO A FORMULARY, filed Sep. 30, 2003, so that a doctoror prescriber may access pharmaceutical information from a pocket-sizedportable device that the user may use at the point of care. The selecteditems are transmitted via, for example, a wireless network, cradle orother transmission means known in the art or developed hereafter.

In another embodiment of the invention, a handheld device usersynchronizes the handheld device with the system, for example, using ahandheld cradle or wireless network, including a login procedure asdescribed herein or other procedure providing user or subscriptioninformation. The system authorizes access to one or more contentdatabases based on the login, user, or subscription information andtransmits some or all of the content contained in the one or moreauthorized databases to the handheld device to store locally on thehandheld device. The content stored to the handheld device may besearched and utilized by the handheld user as described herein.

Systems and components described herein may comprise software, firmware,hardware, or any combination(s) of software, firmware, or hardwaresuitable for the purposes described herein. Software and othercomponents may reside on servers, workstations, personal computers,computerized tablets, PDAs, and other devices suitable for the purposesdescribed herein. Software and other components may be accessible vialocal memory, via a network, via a browser, via client server or otherapplication in an ASP (application service provider) context, or viaother means suitable for the purposes described herein. Data structuresdescribed herein may comprise computer files, variables, programmingarrays, programming structures, or any electronic information storageschemes or methods, or any combinations thereof, suitable for thepurposes described herein.

While the invention has been described and illustrated in connectionwith preferred embodiments, many variations and modifications as will beevident to those skilled in this art may be made without departing fromthe spirit and scope of the invention, and the invention is thus not tobe limited to the precise details of methodology or construction setforth above as such variations and modification are intended to beincluded within the scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A healthcare information delivery systemcomprising: one or more databases having stored therein one or more setsof healthcare-related information and a plurality of display formats,the plurality of display formats including custom display formatsassociated with particular users of the healthcare information deliverysystem or categories of users of the healthcare information deliverysystem, and wherein the plurality of display formats includes customdisplay formats associated with particular device types; anauthorization module configured to provide access to registered users ofthe healthcare information delivery system in a customized fashion,including receiving search criteria from the registered users anddisplaying requested healthcare-related information to the registeredusers in accordance with those of the custom display formats that areassociated with the registered users, wherein the authorization moduleis configured to determine the custom display format based on particularusers or categories of users and wherein the authorization module isfurther configured to determine the custom display format based onparticular device types; a requesting module configured to receive a setof search criteria from the registered users through the custom displayformat and search the one or more databases for healthcare-relatedinformation corresponding to the set of search criteria; and a deliverymodule configured to deliver the healthcare-related information returnedfrom the requesting module to the registered users in accordance withthose of the customized display formats that are associated with theregistered users.
 2. The healthcare information delivery system of claim1, wherein the requesting module further comprises an interface to aformulary management system.
 3. The healthcare information deliverysystem of claim 1, wherein the one or more databases searched forhealthcare-related information include a Physicians Desk Referencecontent database or a proprietary pharmaceutical database.
 4. Thehealthcare information delivery system of claim 1, wherein associatedwith each of the registered users is subscription account informationthat authorizes the user to access one or more of a pharmaceuticalinventory management function, a formulary management function, acontinuing medical education function, healthcare related web communityservers, and a pharmaceutical order and delivery function.
 5. Thehealthcare information delivery system of claim 1, wherein the customdisplay formats include formats in different languages.
 6. Thehealthcare information delivery system of claim 1, wherein thehealthcare-related information is delivered to a wireless deviceassociated with the registered users.
 7. The system of claim 1, furthercomprising a report module configured to generate reports containinginformation regarding usage and resources of the healthcare informationdelivery system.
 8. A healthcare information delivery system comprising:an external content asset database having stored therein a plurality ofmaster document formats and third-party healthcare-related information;a content management system comprising: a content repository containingoriginal healthcare-related information stored in one or more electronicdatabases, and an online content management system configured to enhanceor supplement the original healthcare-related information by combiningthe original healthcare-related information with one or more portions ofthe third-party healthcare-related information content from the externalcontent asset database with information requests; a business informationsystem configured to associate customer account information with a user,the customer account information including a customized presentationdisplay format, wherein the customized presentation display format is acustomized display format associated with a particular device type; apresentation layer configured to format requested healthcare-relatedinformation in accordance with the customized presentation displayformat as determined by the device type; and a communications moduleconfigured to deliver formatted healthcare-related information to adestination device of the user.
 9. The healthcare information deliverysystem of claim 8, further comprising an application framework tointerface underlying services and to provide screen navigation support.10. The healthcare information delivery system of claim 9, wherein theunderlying services include utilities, business services, andinfrastructure services.
 11. The healthcare information delivery systemof claim 8, wherein the content management system assigns an identifierto a set of master documents.
 12. The healthcare information deliverysystem of claim 8, wherein the presentation layer further pre-processesand tags the third-party product information with search instances. 13.The healthcare information delivery system of claim 8, wherein thedestination device is a device selected from the group consisting of adesktop personal computer, a laptop, a mobile telephone, and a personaldigital assistant (PDA).
 14. The healthcare information delivery systemof claim 8, further comprising a report module configured to generatereports containing information regarding usage and resources of thehealthcare information delivery system.
 15. An Internet delivery systemcomprising: an external content asset database having stored therein aplurality of master document formats and third-party productinformation; a content management system comprising: a contentrepository containing original product-related information stored in oneor more electronic databases, and an online content management systemconfigured to enhance or supplement the original product-relatedinformation by combining the original product-related information withone or more portions of the third-party product-related informationcontent from the external content asset database with informationrequests; a business information system configured to associate customeraccount information with a user, the customer account informationincluding a customized presentation display format based on a user typeof a plurality of user types to which the user pertains; a presentationlayer configured to format requested product-related information inaccordance with the customized presentation display format as determinedby the user type; and a communications module configured to deliverformatted product-related information to a destination device of theuser.
 16. The Internet delivery system of claim 15, wherein the contentmanagement system assigns an identifier to a set of master documents.17. The Internet delivery system of claim 15, wherein the presentationlayer further pre-processes and tags the third-party product informationwith search instances.
 18. The Internet delivery system of claim 15,wherein the destination device is a device selected from a groupconsisting of a desktop personal computer, a laptop, a mobile telephone,and a personal digital assistant (PDA).
 19. The Internet delivery systemof claim 15, further comprising a report module configured to generatereports containing information regarding usage and resources of theInternet delivery system.